


i'll find your lips in the streetlights

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Post-Season/Series 03, Reunions, Romance, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 15:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21358273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: The note came in the mail six weeks after the battle at Starcourt, three weeks after he found out they were moving. It was addressed to him, and contained nothing but the instructions to find the spare keys and a single sentence: “Just in case.”Jonathan’s not sure if this is what Murray had in mind, but he’s damn grateful for it.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41





	i'll find your lips in the streetlights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fakelight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakelight/gifts).

> this is a birthday present for fakelight, who is an og jancy fic GODDESS and a wonderful friend. happy happy shippy birthday, my friend.

He keeps his eyes steady on the pan of eggs. It’s easier if he doesn’t look at her when does this.

“So, anyway—”

“Jonathan, is breakfast ready?” Will’s voice cuts through his sentence and he frowns, shaking the pan again. “I’m hungry.”

“Just a couple minutes.”

“Is there toast?”

“Are there Eggos?” El chimes in, her chair squeaking on the linoleum floor

“Where’s the ketchup?”

“And the syrup!”

“We’re gonna be late if you don’t—”

“You’re _not_ going to be late,” Jonathan growls, whipping around and pointing the spatula at his little brother. “And I’m _busy_ so why don’t you get ketchup and syrup and whatever _yourself_.”

Will makes a face at him and he makes a face back and it’s only his internal timer, the one that’s been scrambling eggs since he was a year younger than Will is now - and _god_ he wants to say that, wants to rub it in his brother’s face, and point out that by this time next year he’ll be in college or somewhere else far away from here so Will better start practicing his eggs sooner rather than later - that prompts him to turn back before their aforementioned breakfast can start to burn.

He twists the burner off with a snap and starts scraping eggs onto the plates laid out on the counter beside him, pointedly ignoring the expression on his mother’s face. Affectionate, amused, and really, really irritating.

“So _anyway_,” he tries again. “I figure if I leave today after school, I’ll get there by tonight and then there’s activities tomorrow and Sunday morning, then I’ll drive home. I should be back in time for dinner.”

“And where will you stay?” his mother asks, smile not wavering as she takes the plates from him and passes them to his siblings, who are clamoring over each other for condiments and juice.

“I think they put us up in a dorm,” he shrugs, scraping the last of the eggs on to his own plate. “I’m not sure if we share rooms or if we share with student hosts. It wasn’t clear.”

“And why have I never heard of this school before?”

He’s not expecting that. “What?”

“You’ve never mentioned it once. Now you want to go for prospective students’ weekend?”

“The guidance counselor suggested it,” that part’s actually not a lie, but suddenly he can’t think of the guidance counselor’s name. He doesn’t really pay attention in their meetings anyway, just nods along as they check in on how he’s adjusting and what his college plans are. As if he’s doing anything other than counting the days to freedom. “As a safety school. It can’t hurt, I guess. Plus, you’re always bugging me to get out of the house on weekends. Now I’m getting out of the state.”

His mother is watching him closely, eyes narrow and deep, and he can’t quite meet them as he takes his plate to the table, shoves a forkful into his mouth. Waits, trying not to let on just how much he’s holding his breath.

“Alright,” she finally says. “But you have to call me as soon as you get there. I don’t trust that car.”

“My car is _fine,_” he can’t help but leap to the battered old Ford’s defense, but smiles widely at his mom while he does. “And I will. Promise.”

He stuffs two sweaters and an extra pair of pants into a duffel bag and throws it into the back seat of his car, takes off for school with a smile on his face for the first time in months, and not even Will and El’s bickering can make it fade.

+++

She stands at the kitchen counter, watching the table carefully, analyzing her strategy. Her father is deep in his morning paper, her brother off in his own little world as he pushes eggs around the plate and reads a comic next to his placemat. Her mother is trying to feed Holly, who is fussing and whining for ‘spiky toast.’ And the toaster is still going.

Her mother’s voice is getting increasingly irritated and increasingly desperate and Nancy watches the toaster, counting down the seconds. Three, two, one—

She catches the waffles as they pop out and slides them onto a napkin, smoothly setting them in front of her little sister on her high chair. Holly squeals with delight and her mother sighs with relief.

“Thank you, Nance.”

“No problem, Mom,” she sits down across from her and grins. “So, I was hoping I could borrow the car for the weekend?”

“The _weekend_?!”

Oops. Too much too soon. She recalibrates, quickly. “Yeah, there’s this open house weekend at Hanover, Ally and I are going to go.”

“Hanover?”  
  
“College? You know, those things I’m applying to right now?”

“And why is this the first time I’ve heard of this?”

“It’s just a safety school,” Nancy shrugs, taking a delicate bite of her eggs. “But it’s pretty close and this seems pretty cool. You get to stay with a sophomore and they take you around, show you the campus. The departments are open for meetings so you can meet professors and stuff. I think it’ll be good. And it just a few hours away, an easy drive.”

“But you need to borrow my car?”

“Ally’s parents won’t let her drive that far, but you know I can do it safely. Promise.” Internally she winces and hopes Ally never finds out about this. Feels a little extra pang of guilt that it’s the second time she’s used the girl, the perfectly nice and friendly girl, in a lie.

“I don’t know, Nancy, shouldn’t we be going to these kinds of things with you?”

“The whole point is for parents _not_ to be there,” it takes some effort to keep the whine out of her voice. “That way you can get a feel for what campus life is really like and you can see if it’s a good fit.”

Her mother looks closely at her, searching for something. Nancy keeps her eyes wide and guileless, and hopes her mom can’t read any of the thoughts and hopes swirling in her mind. Reminds herself that if they say no she’s just taking the car, leaving a note, and going.

“Anything you’d like to add, Ted?” Her mother’s eyes slide to the other end of the table. Her father doesn’t even look up from his paper.

“She’s a responsible girl, Karen,” her father drones, turning a page. “I trust her.”

Her mother’s lips twitch, like she knows better. Maybe she does. Nancy resists the urge to make a face at his blasé statement lest it tank her plan entirely. The silence is heavy and stretches. Even Mike looks up from his comic, curious.

“Fine,” she finally answers. “But you have to call me _as soon_ as you get there, okay? And if anything happens to the car, if you have trouble with gas or the engine, you pull over _immediately_.”

“I _know_, Mom, jeez.” The annoyance slips through but she pulls it back, gives her brightest and most thankful smile. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Her mother sighs and starts cutting up Holly’s second waffle.

+++

The driveway and façade of the building are so familiar it sends shivers down his spine.

For a moment, parked in front of the industrial garage door, he can’t move, can barely even breathe. His skin is buzzing with anticipation and excitement. But he has to move, because the sun is low in the sky and sinking quickly and there’s no way he’s gonna find the hidden set of spare keys in the dark.

He barely finds them at all. Stands in front of the steel door, takes four steps to the left, two steps back, three more steps to the left, and five steps forward. Is grateful not one is around to witness this immensely silly dance. Has to do it twice more before he’s in the exact right spot. And when it’s done he’s still confronted with four different terra cotta pots, all covered in spiderwebs, and no idea which one is the right one.

He grimaces, closes his eyes, and sticks his hand into the first, trying mightily not to think about whether or not a spider might be waiting inside one of them.

The keys are, of course, in the fourth pot. He’s equally glad no one is there to hear him whimper his way through the exploration.

Remembering the keys is easier; that part, at least, is burned into his brain. He sorts them, methodically turning each lock: top, second from top, third from top, bottom. Each thunk of a deadbolt ratchets up his pulse another notch.

The door squeaks when it opens; the air inside is musty, stale. But it’s warm, so the heat is still working, and the lights still come on, so even though it’s technically been abandoned for months now clearly the bills are still being paid. As they illuminate the basement Jonathan feels a little like he’s stepped back through time.

The record player and records are still there. So is the wall of televisions and that weird skull poster, staring ominously at him and declaring ‘SOMEONE TALKED.’ In fact, without the layer of dust on everything he’d swear that Murray still lived here and was simply gone for the weekend.

He’s still not quite sure why the former journalist abandoned his home so quickly. His mom said it had something to do with her giving the government his phone number, but she was evasive and vague. He knows the man calls to give her updates, but he’s not sure about what. If his mother knows where he is, she’s never said.

The note came in the mail six weeks after the battle at Starcourt, three weeks after he found out they were moving. It was addressed to him, and contained nothing but the instructions to find the spare keys and a single sentence: “Just in case.”

Jonathan’s not sure if this is what Murray had in mind, but he’s damn grateful for it.

He’s so lost in thought he doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him, practically jumps out of his skin when two thin arms slide around his waist.

“Jesus!” he yelps, heart pounding. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You left the door open, dummy,” Nancy says into his shoulder blade, voice clear and warm and _right there_ instead of a telephone line away. He can feel the press of her nose through his jacket. Closes his eyes for just one second to revel in it before spinning and tugging her further into his arms.

She squeaks, then sighs, as they cling to each other. He buries his nose in her hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo that has long since faded from his pillowcases, feeling how warm her skin is, remembering just how well she fits in his arms. Her fingers bunch in the back of his jacket, and her arms shake from the effort of holding him.

He feels his muscles relax one by one, the knot between his shoulders unkink, the tension headache that has haloed his skull since moving day start to dissipate. He’s suddenly aware of his own weight, like he’s settling back into his body now that she’s back in his arms.

“Oh god I’ve missed you,” she says into his neck and his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He pulls back to look at her, big blue eyes and curly brown hair. Perhaps she looks a bit tired, he thinks, a little thinner than he remembers, a little sadder. Maybe he does, too. It’s been hard, harder than he’d convinced himself it would be. That’s why there here, a full three and a half weeks before the Thanksgiving visit that is officially family approved.

He wants to tell her everything he hasn’t been able to, things he’s kept back from their late-night phone calls, that didn’t feel safe to breathe down a telephone line. He wants to collapse onto the nearest soft surface and hold her on his chest, just breathing with her. He wants to tell her he loves her, press to words into every inch of her skin. He wants to just laugh and spin her around in circles until they’re both too dizzy to stand.

Then she licks her lips and he remembers, oh yeah, what he _really_ wants to do is _kiss her. _

The softness of her lips, the heat of her tongue and the taste of her sends his knees weak as he hauls her against his chest. As she scrapes her fingernails against his scalp and holds his face tight to hers.

“I missed you too,” he gasps between kisses. “I can’t even say.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They spin slowly, less a dance, more like impatience, and he’s trying to get her coat off, get to the rest of her underneath it, but she’s incredibly distracting and Murray’s basement is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time so he keeps bumping into things. After the third muffled yelp from her hip hitting a corner, Nancy manages to shove him back against the televisions and hold him still. A knob is digging into his shoulder, another into his elbow, but he really, really doesn’t care.

“What did you tell your mom?” he asks, dipping his mouth to her neck to suck a mark over her pulse and catch his breath. She tugs on his hair a little and he shivers. “Another weekend at Ally’s?”

“College visit,” she pants, tipping her head for easier access. “You?”

“Same,” he chuckles breathlessly and raises his head only to find her smiling up at him. “Great minds and all that.”

“The greatest. How long do you have?”

“’Til Sunday night.”

Her smile grows even wider. “Me too.”

“Excellent,” he tugs on her hips and she jumps up into his arms. “I need to call my mom and tell her I made it.”

“Me too,” she brushes another kiss across his lips, “We should probably do that.”

He’d reply but she’s kissing him again so he settles for a noncommittal sound and sets her on the back of the sofa. Sheds his own jacket, letting it drop to the floor as she wraps her legs around his hips.

He’s perfectly content to stay right where they are, is working a hand under her sweater, when she pushes him gently away.

“I don’t want to fuck you for the first time in a month on the back of Murray’s dusty sofa,” she says and he laughs for real at that, dropping his forehead onto her shoulder as he giggles. She combs her hands through his hair and when she sighs she sounds perfectly content.

“I’m gonna call my mom and you should too, so they leave us alone for the whole weekend,” Nancy says when he’s looking at her again, their foreheads tipped together. “And then I’m taking off all your clothes and not letting you get dressed for at least twelve hours.”

“We’re gonna have to eat sometime,” he points out but takes a step back.

“That’s a problem for later,” she shrugs, hopping down from the sofa.

“I’m not touching anything in that fridge,” he warns, and watches as she picks up the nearest phone, checking for a ringtone before dialing.

He uses the opportunity to run back out to his car and grab his overnight bag. He grabs Nancy’s from the back of the Wheelers’ station wagon which is, predictably, unlocked, and takes a moment to check that the keys aren’t in there before locking it up on Nancy’s behalf. He throws a couple of the deadbolts back into place on his way in too, just in case.

Nancy’s just hanging up when he drops their bags, and gestures him towards the phone. He finds it’s easy to keep his voice light, to sound convincingly like this college visit was a good idea, to lie to his mom. The conversation barely lasts a minute and when he hangs up Nancy’s rummaging around in the kitchen.

“All of that stuff is gross, Nance,” he says as he joins her. “Also, _do not_ open that fridge. He hasn’t been here in like three months, it’s gotta be disgusting.”

“I won’t, I won’t, _but_,” she drops down from her tiptoes in front of the cabinet she’d been looking in and turns around with a mischievous grin, “look what I found.”

It’s difficult to tear his eyes from her face, but he does. Then immediately grimaces when he sees the bottle in her hand.

“_No_.”

“Oh come on,” she wiggles the vodka at him and takes a step closer, “we’ve got the whole place to ourselves all weekend. Let’s have a little fun.”

“I don’t need vodka to have fun,” he murmurs, reaching for her. She comes easily. “And I was planning on having _a lot_ of fun.”

“Oh lighten u—” she starts but he cuts her off with his mouth, takes the bottle from her when she’s sufficiently diverted and sets it on the counter.

He’s able to navigate them from the kitchen to the guest bedroom with significantly less bumping into things, and doesn’t bother to hide how proud he is.

“This takes me back,” she murmurs into his mouth, taking the scantest step away from him to look around his torso and at the bed, and freezes. “Hold on. Look at that.”

He tenses, turns expecting something horrible and monstrous to appear behind him, but instead it’s just the guest bed. Unmade, sure, but a mattress with sheets and pillows and blankets all the same. He frowns.

“What?”

“The sheets.”

“I… don’t get it,” he admits, wondering when exactly they’re going to get back to kissing. “I mean, they’re probably a little dusty but I’m sure it’s fine. And if it isn’t we can, like, flip the blanket over or something—”

“No, _look_ at them.”

He looks again. Floral sheets. Kind of ugly. Vaguely familiar but he’s not sure from where. No alarm bells go off in his head and he looks at his girlfriend, confused.

“They’re floral?”

“They’re the _exact_ same sheets from last year.”

He wants to be insulted she was paying attention to the sheets, but bites the comment back.

“…So? I’m sure he’s washed them since then.”

“Same blankets, same pillows too,” she ticks her points off on her fingers. “_Are _you sure?”

“He’s weird, Nance, but he’s not disgusting.”

“That is definitely up for debate.” She looks at him and then the bed, considering, before going up and running her hand over the sheet. Grimaces as she pulls it away and holds it up for him to inspect. There’s a gray-brown film on her palm, which she wipes off on her jeans. “It’s _really_ dusty.”

“We’ll shake them out,” his blood thrums, wanting to get back to kissing her, tasting her, touching her. He’s not sure how she can keep quite such a clear head right now. “Nancy, _come here_.”

“It’s going to be filthy,” she points out, and turns back to the bed, thinking. He sidles up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist and starts kissing down the back of her neck. They can worry about this later. At this moment, the floor sounds just fine to him. “You’re not going to distract me.”

“You sure?” he slides his hands down her stomach, toying with the button on her jeans. “I can try harder.”

There’s a slight press against the front of his jeans and she snickers. “Yeah you can.”

“Nancy—”

“Wait,” she turns and starts to push him out the door, “I have an idea.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” she grins up at him, sly and delighted as she takes his hand and pulls him through the living room once again. She looks so beautiful that for a second he can’t see anything but her, doesn’t realize quite where she’s leading him. “How _was_ the pull-out?”

It takes him a second but he barks a laugh and as something inside him lifts, effervescent and joyful for the first time since he pulled out of his driveway in October, he reaches out and grabs the bottle of vodka from the kitchen counter as they pass.

“Let’s find out.”


End file.
